He’d been to Hull and back… but the indefatigable Tony was ecstatic after making £133 at a car boot sale.

Unfortunately, he remained £267 down on his job-lot of cheap watches and “quality” china shire horses. But nothing gets our Tony down. He’s a glass half full kinda guy. To a ridiculous extent.

As Channel’s 5’s compelling The Great British Benefits Handout reached its contrived conclusion we were assured that this “pioneering social experiment” to get poverty-stricken people off welfare had been a roaring success. All reality TV shows have to finish neatly on a high. Happy endings are the law.

But Tony still couldn’t drive the van upon which his dubious business relies. And one day of flogging tat hardly seemed like a one-way ticket to lasting prosperity. But as far as the producers were concerned, Tony and his partner Diane had passed the test with flying colours. They so hadn’t.

Meanwhile, after spending nearly all of his £26,000 windfall on exotic creatures for his strange snake and tarantula-based children’s party company, animal crackers Scott was forced to sell his beloved raccoon Bandit. The useless thing hadn’t made a penny.

“Next year when I’m a millionaire,” he declared. “If I want to buy something I can.” But as of now, he can’t. Because he hasn’t got much money left.

Nevertheless, we were asked to accept that it was all plain sailing following Scott and his long-suffering wife Leanne’s church hall kiddies’ day that netted them £525. So that’s £21,000 shelled out to reap a total income of £525. Not exactly balancing the books are they?

And as for unemployed Rachel, we were supposed to believe that her future looked bright because she’d applied for a loads of jobs and been turned down for all of them. Woohoo.

This was a decent programme that was as interesting as it was hilarious. Sadly, the stories are clearly not over. But the series is. And that’s deeply unsatisfying.